


Nobody Hurts Skullcrusher, No Exceptions

by sweet_witch_hella_knight



Category: That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Abusive Parents, Comfort/Angst, Conditioning, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Nonbinary Character, References to kidnapping, tw for drug and alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 07:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_witch_hella_knight/pseuds/sweet_witch_hella_knight
Summary: Devil Boner meets Hyper's twisted parents and tries to keep himself stable while watching them treat Hyper and her siblings horribly. He doesn't do very well.





	Nobody Hurts Skullcrusher, No Exceptions

**Author's Note:**

> emeriin made a short thing with devil boner meeting hyper's parents before we learned hyper actually LIKES her parents (and that yes, they are definitely aunt despair and uncle lies). so i decided to make a longer version with the canon implication that she's conditioned to see their behavior as normal. major trigger warning for abusive parents, obviously. i really love devil boner protecting and loving hyper when not a lot of people do (for good reason, but her parents seem wayyyy worse than her.)
> 
> also note- hyper's sister (the tomboy kid tamara plays, with the baseball cap) is closeted nonbinary (but still girl-aligned) so i use they/them.
> 
> EDIT: hulk review gave the kids names, so i added them in!

The first thing Devil Boner noticed was the house was a goddamn wreck.

Maybe living in a house paid off by a famous director's blackmail money made every house look like shit by comparison, and he couldn't judge the house's style or anything, but the place just looked unsafe. The windows were cracked and the roof was missing its shingles. He kicked a beer bottle that lay on the browning lawn.

It did excite him a bit- if things were this broken, maybe it meant the people who lived there were as reckless and violent as him. But it put him on edge to see his girlfriend's parents apparently didn't even care to clean their house up.

Hyper seemed pretty excited anyway. She loved showing him off to everyone, and of course her family would be included in that. Devil Boner'd heard her bring them up at times, and he had to admit they sounded kind of awesome at first- they'd taught her to manipulate people and even had ties to Satanism, something he obviously appreciated. 

But sometimes Hyper would bring up memories that sounded weird. When they had done therapy with Bill, she hadn't talked much about her earlier childhood, but he was wondering if maybe that was what she needed to talk about. 

Hyper was the only one who could make him think so much about anyone's well-being- he just really wanted her happy and safe. But so far she was, so with his gun on safety lock and his hand in hers, Devil Boner followed his girlfriend to the patio.

 

"Who's there?" piped a nervous voice from behind the door.

"Melody, It's me!" Hyper chirped. "Your favorite older sister!"

A little kid, hair tied back and tucked under a baseball cap, sporting a  _The Force Awakens_ T-shirt, opened the door slowly. "You're my  _only_ older sister," they told Hyper matter of factly.

Hyper barely had to crouch down to respond to her little sister. "I know, but that means there's no competition so I'm still your favorite, right?"

The tomboy shrugged and let Hyper hug them. Once she let them go, she pointed to their shirt and squealed happily. "I'm so glad you like that movie too! I was super into  _Star Wars_ even before you were born! And the new one is just so good!! I know a lot of haters say it takes too much from the original but honestly that's not a bad thing, and Rey is so powerful and pretty and cool, and Finn and Poe are so great, and BB-8 is adorable, and honestly I think Kylo is really deep and kind of hot, and-" Her little sister had stopped listening to her tangent and was staring confused at Devil Boner. 

Hyper put her arm around him, saying, "Devil Boner, this is my little sister." She smiled back down at Melody, still confused. "This is my boyfriend!" Noticing their hesitation, probably having initially forgotten his hard punk aesthetic wasn't something most ten year olds were used to, clarifying, "Don't worry, he's child friendly, I swear."

Devil Boner crouched to extend his hand to Melody. "Hey."

Melody took his hand, and Hyper stepped in front to enter her old house, her boyfriend stepping in behind her. Melody whispered in her ear, "I was kinda scared but I didn't pee myself this time." Hyper proudly nodded and patted them on the back, surprising but pleasing them.

 

The house wasn't any more appealing on the inside. Besides a few kitschy decorations that Devil Boner had to keep himself from shooting down in annoyance, there were broken toys and clothes and vodka bottles everywhere. Granted, his house wasn't much cleaner- he and Benny had defiled the place with a few burn and bullet marks in their time- but again, not a good first impression.

Hyper knew how to maneuver the mess and started gushing to him. "Oh my god, I feel like it's been forever since I was here last!" She started pointing around, starting with a glass figure on the mantle. "There's the little deer figurine- see it has a broken leg? My brother Cliff broke it and my mom took it away before he could break the other three." She ran to the couch and flopped onto it face first. "And this couch has always been here! And it still smells like Mom!" Upon closer inspection Devil Boner recognized it smelled like tobacco, weed, vodka, and something he didn't want to examine closer but that resembled the stench of a rotting corpse. 

Hyper's next stop was a low-hanging framed picture, which she lifted to reveal a crude doodle of some girl bound up and under torture. "And Cliff drew this too, after he watched  _Evil Dead_ with me."

"How old could he have been, having drawn that?" he asked, observing the simplistic doodle.

"Probably...six, I think?" 

Devil Boner didn't really judge that, because gruesome shit was his bread and butter and he didn't really care if a kid wanted to watch that very young, if they were tough enough. He did joke, "If there's any issue I have, it's you probably showed him the original."

" _Don't_ bring that back up, cupcake!" she cried. "We talked that out and we're past that and never going back to that again, okay?"

"No, don't sweat it, switchblade, I was teasing."

Hyper shot him a doe-eyed look, playing up her vulnerability. "Don't, please."

Devil Boner nodded and squeezed her hand to reassure her, which worked. Soon her attention switched to a VHS rack near the outdated television. "Holy crap, they still have all the old tapes I watched as a kid!!!" She started pulling out tapes to fulfill her nostalgia trip, and as Devil Boner started to join her he felt a tug on his jacket.

He turned around to find a grinning boy, no older than twelve, sporting another baseball cap. 

"You look so cool."

Devil Boner stood up tall, enjoying the ego inflation. "Yeah? Thanks, dude."

The boy snuck around behind Devil Boner and grabbed hold of his signature machine gun, seemingly trying to find the trigger. "How much ammo is packed in this?" he asked, eyes wide like he was staring down a candy store and not a deadly weapon. 

Recognizing the kid as the twisted twerp behind the drawing on the wall, as well as far more age-inappropriate shit according to Hyper, Devil Boner swatted the smaller hand off the gun. "Not your place to know. It's not a toy for little kids."

Cliff's grin didn't falter, even with Devil Boner staring him down menacingly. Only when he heard someone coming down the stairs did it fall, with Cliff  scampering away to his mutilated toys, laying low.

 

At the foot of the stairs stood two adults, the parents to Hyper and the two kids. One looked half-dead, sporting a kitschy purple jumper that reached down to her feet, burnt-out cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth. The other sported a cheesy sweater, a 50's-ish pipe, and a phony smile that made his appearance more unsettling than it should have been. Neither seemed to be uncomfortable with Devil Boner's over-the-top appearance, carrying at least one giant gun in their house full of children. Maybe they were into this stuff. After all, their daughter had grown accustomed to it pretty quickly.

"Ah, didn't hear you come in," the man of the duo greeted him. "You're not affiliated with the American, British, or Argentinian government, are you?"

"No," Devil Boner replied confused.

"Oh, then welcome. Everyone calls me Uncle Lies and this is my wife Aunt Despair." Devil Boner was going to ask why the hell they were called that but realized he was really in no place to judge.

Uncle Lies turned to the woman. "Were we supposed to have guests today, honey?"

"I don't know, what day is it?" his wife slurred.

"Friday, I believe,"  Uncle Lies said.

Aunt Despair stopped to think, leaning on her husband's shoulder. "Follow up question, what year is it?"

Devil Boner was not quick-witted at all- even Hyper could recognize that. But this lady was super out of it. He figured she could be possessed, or a zombie. That would make this meeting a  _lot_ more awesome.

Annoyed, Devil Boner reminded them, "I'm your daughter's boyfriend. She invited me for dinner. Did she not tell you or something?"

"Which daughter?" Aunt Despair asked. She pointed to Melody, shrinking away from their parents. "That one? 'Cause she's too young for boys. She's only five."

"I'm  _ten_ ," Melody peeped up.

"Oh, then feel free to go wild, I guess." She grabbed a clear bottle sitting on the middle of the coffee table and proceeded to chug it. 

"No, no, no," Devil Boner shook his head and pointed to Hyper, still combing through the VHS rack. 

Her parents turned towards where he was pointed, but didn't appear delighted to see their daughter again.

"Oh, her?" Uncle Lies said, as if he had forgotten she had existed. "Oh, we assumed she died a few years back."

"Would have been one less gift to give on Christmas," Aunt Despair snarked.

Cliff peeked out to note, "You sent her one of  _my_ toys."

"Money's tight, kid," his dad waved him off. "You can play with that button on the floor." 

Instead, Cliff just snagged the doll his sister was playing with, leading to a fight that the parents ignored. Devil Boner, curious as he was to see who would come up victorious, knew he should focus on dealing with his potential in-laws, so he ignored them as well.

Clutching several tapes in her hands, Hyper walked back over. "Ooh, I haven't watched the two-dimensional  _Lorax_ short in years! I mean, the Onceler isn't really sexy at all in it, but I'm sure it has redeeming value anyway-" She saw her parents and dropped all the tapes to the floor, running up to them. Despite how disinterested they were in her, she was glowing. "Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!" "Oh my god, I feel like I haven't seen you in ages! I love my new place but I missed this house, too!"

Neither hugged her back or seemed appreciative at all, which Devil Boner thought was ridiculous. Hyper's hugs were warm and tight and could probably choke a bitch if they got on her bad side, and they were the best he ever had. 

Uncle Lies pushed her off of them with a condescending pat on the head. "Yes, um....daughter," he said, sounding more forced than affectionate. "You really should have called before you come here, you know."

"I did call. Twice a day for the past week. I kept leaving messages." Hyper's smile started to fade as she became less sure of herself. "And I e-mailed you both. I thought you saw?"

Her dad tapped his pipe to his chin trying to remember. "Oh yeah, I think I saw. But I probably just mass deleted them. I only really read e-mails I recognize right away as important."

Hyper already looked more submissive than her boyfriend had ever seen her before. "Can we still stay for dinner, though?"

Aunt Despair had already finished all the liquid that had been left in the vodka bottle. "Well, we do have some leftovers we need to get rid of before they hit the expiration date," she said. "So sure, I guess you can stay."

Hyper started smiling again as if they were welcoming them with open arms instead of a shrug. "Thank you!" She took the tapes back from Devil Boner and ushered him into the dining room.

 

The "dining room" was really just a cheap wooden table, chipping at the edges, inside the kitchen. It didn't look any cleaner than any other room in the house. All Aunt Despair had to offer were hot dogs. Devil Boner wasn't opposed to hot dogs- they were a good quick snack in between target practice and the phallic shape was amusing. But this bitch hadn't cooked them or even tossed them in the microwave. She seemed too loaded to operate anything correctly.

Hyper, of course, sat next to Devil Boner and across from her parents. The kids sat at a smaller table nearby, looking cramped and miserable. He did kind of feel bad for them, but Hyper, despite all her proclaimed love for them, didn't seem concerned at all.

They sat around, eating their awful meal and ignoring each other, until Hyper broke the tension. 

"Sooo, how is everything around the house?"

"As good as it's gonna get." Aunt Despair shook a bottle of pills onto her plate next to her cold dog.

Hyper ignored the depressed tone. "Good! We have a nice place of our own now.  _Great_ views, we got a lake and a hot tub and everything!" She pulled a picture of their home up to show them.

Aunt Despair squinted at the image on Hyper's phone. "Wow. Who'd you have to sleep with for  _that_  fancy shit?"

Hyper scoffed. "Nobody. It's Joe Dante's settlement. I stalked him for a while and-"

Aunt Despair waved her off before Hyper went into a tangent. "Yeah, whatever, I'll look it up." She popped a few pills.

"You didn't think to share any of that cash with us?" Uncle Lies sucked on his pipe quizzically.

"Um, was I supposed to?" Hyper asked.

"Well, you'd think you would offer a little support, considering we're your family and all."

"We taught you how to scam money out of people," Aunt Despair scolded, "and we expect a little payback for that."

Hyper lowered her head in shame. Devil Boner hated seeing her so self conscious. He decided to speak up for her, trying his best not to go loco on them just yet. "Hey, wait a second, it's her cash! She earned it in her own special way and she'll share it with whoever she wants to!"

Uncle Lies didn't seem intimidated in the slightest. "Well, of course you would say that. You're living with her, mooching off of her wealth. And for the record? It's  _whomever._ "

Oh, this asshole was not going to get away with suggesting Devil Boner didn't love his little hand grenade. "Okay, buster, you're asking for it!" He started reaching for his gun before Hyper pulled him down.

"Be cool," she whispered. "These are my parents, and I want them to like you. I mean, we could need their blessing someday."

"We're both going to Hell, we know it and we're proud of it," he whispered back as softly as he could, though he wasn't used to being quiet. "We don't need anyone's blessing."

"Alright, but just calm down. Let's keep this happy." They returned to the conversation. Devil Boner took an aggressive bite of his wiener dog staring straight at Uncle Lies.

 

"Soooo," Hyper changed the subject awkwardly, "what happened to the baby?"

Aunt Despair shrugged. "If you mean the pigtails kid, I just left her with that...Nostalgia chump. But whatever, we can live without her."

Wait, they'd left a kid behind? With that pathetic asshole? 

"Daddy, do we have Pepsi?" asked Melody.

"Oh, you want Pepsi?" Uncle Lies started, actually sounding normal for a second before switching to a terrifying bark. "You can go get a job of your own and make your own money to  _buy_  Pepsi!" 

Jeez. Devil Boner loved scaring the shit out of people, but there was no fun in beating on a little kid who wasn't gonna fight back. That was just cowardly.

Melody started crying. Cliff looked a bit pained, but smirked to himself, grateful it wasn't him getting yelled at. He figured it would be funny to fuck with Hyper too, and threw a fork at her. 

She winced, but avoided the pain and changed the subject again to one of her favorites. "Oh, right, I almost forgot you know the Nostalgia Critic too! You know we dated for a little while? I mean I kidnapped him,  _technically,_ but-"

"But he dumped you?" Uncle Lies assumed.

"Well, no, I skyrocketed through the roof, but-"

"Well, obviously, you weren't able to hold onto him."

"Hey, I'm sure he kind of likes me! He stopped fighting when I tie him up, I mean, that means something, right?"

Aunt Despair glared at Hyper. "Look, Harper."

"It's Hyper."

"Yeah, look. People aren't going to like you when you're weird. And you're weird. So you want someone to like you, you gotta kidnap them better." She pointed to Devil Boner, who had his hand on his gun and was trying his best not to go ballistic. "Like, what did you do to him that made him wanna stick around? I'm just assuming he's a pity date. Like the other boyfriend." She addressed Devil Boner directly. "How old are you, like, forty?"

"How old are  _you,_ like, seventy?" Devil Boner snapped. Hyper bopped him on the leg as a reminder not to be impulsive. Aunt Despair didn't seem to care anyway and just downed more liquor and Xanax.

"Oh, I recognize the leather daddy look," Uncle Lies said to Devil Boner now. "She's totally your beard, right? You're not fooling anyone." 

_Neither of us are straight, dipshit, and we're still into each other,_ Devil Boner wanted to scream in their faces, but Hyper had her hand on his leg now and he wasn't going to betray her yet. She was looking too close to crying for comfort, though. 

"Did you knock her up? 'Cause you aren't stuck there. You can always find a way to self-abort." She waved her vodka in his face with a knowing smile.

"No, I'm not pregnant, I'm pretty sure," Hyper insisted.

"Yeah, can't I just be with her because I think she's cool and beautiful?" Devil Boner said, still trying his best to compose himself but needing to speak up. Hyper smiled at the appreciation, snuggling up to his arm.

Her parents laughed at his remark. She tried to hide it, but he could see her tears starting back up.

"Oh yes, nothing cooler and more beautiful than a grown woman who dresses like a twelve-year-old boy!" Uncle Lies mocked.

Aunt Despair noticed Hyper was crying, but didn't show any more sympathy than before. "Oh, grow up. You know fake crying doesn't work on me anymore."

It wasn't faking. Hyper was pretty good at exaggerating a breakdown if she needed something, but this wasn't one of those cases- she wouldn't be covering her face if she thought there was a chance of any sort of apology. She was breaking down and Devil Boner couldn't stand it. He missed his adorable, excitable, destructive girlfriend. How  _dare_ these assholes think they can say that shit to her face. He'd seen bad parenting in his lifetime, but these people seemed soulless. Maybe they had sold their souls, that didn't matter. He was not holding back any longer, even if Hyper wanted him to.

 

" _Shut the fuck up!_ " Devil Boner got up with his gigantic machine gun pointed across the table at his girlfriend's parents. "Do you realize what a babe the two of you made? How gorgeous and fun and chaotic she is? She surprises me every day! You knew her every day of her fucking life and you  _still_ don't appreciate her?!" He pointed the gun to Aunt Despair's face, whose reaction time seemed dead, but that didn't stop Devil Boner's rant. "You act like she can't get anything on her own?!" He pointed it towards the more intimidated Uncle Lies. "You act like she owes you shit when you haven't done  _shit_ for her?! When all she has to say about you is good?! And the way you treat the little rugrats over there," Devil Boner pointed to the two terrified children, "what do you get out of that, huh? Two kids who probably also deserve way better but have to deal with your bullshit every day! Honestly, give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your heads off right now and cover this sad excuse for a meal with your blood?!?!"

Hyper grabbed his arms, trying to lower his gun. Paradoxically, Hyper's touch snapped him out of his furious defense of her, and he came back to Earth. "Pumpkin, why don't I show you my old room?" She pushed him upstairs, leaving behind her two somewhat shaken parents with an awkward smile.

 

"What the  _hell_ did you do?!" Hyper wasn't so much angry at Devil Boner as conflicted and frustrated. They were surrounded by kiddie toys and Marvel memorabilia, but the environment was still hostile.

"I had to do that! You know I would slaughter anyone who hurts you like that!"

"Yeah, but they're my parents! They don't count! They did everything for me as a kid! They're the ones who bought me all the merchandise I grew up on, and they took me to Disneyland, and-"

"And they tell you you're weird and no one will love you."

"They're just stating the facts!"

Devil Boner realized she'd grown up with these people telling her this since she was a little kid. She hadn't realized her parents were full of shit and bailed on them like he had. She wanted to love them. But what was the point if they didn't care about her back? She was one of the few people he found worth caring about, and her own parents treated her like shit?

"No, they're not and you know that. They're idiots. Just because you came out of her pussy doesn't mean you owe her shit automatically."

"But they taught me everything I know."

"Okay then!" He threw his hands up in the air. "You're an adult now! You don't need them!"

Hyper admitted, "I lied about being legal on fandom forums for so long, I forget that I'm actually an adult now."

"Exactly! You live your own life now, so why do you suck up to them still?!"

Hyper was shrinking back a bit. He realized he was yelling at her, which he really didn't mean to do, and he really didn't want to make her feel even  _worse._ He lowered his voice and reached out his hand. She tentatively squeezed it with her own.

"Look. Maybe lashing out at them wasn't a good idea." Hyper nodded at Devil Boner's confession. He continued, "Maybe I should have just shot them right away and gotten it over with."

"Babe!"

"Okay, okay!" He held his free hand up. "The point is...we can live without them, y'know? If they died, would you have lost anything?"

"They...they bought me an old  _Transformers_ toy last Christmas."

"Did you like it?"

"No, it broke immediately and I barely even watched the show to begin with. Even the movies I only bought because I thought Critic liked them. But..." Hyper struggled to remember something her parents did for her after she left home. "But....but...they  _have_ to love me?"

The girl had a real talent for denial. "I'm not really an expert on love or anything, but calling you names and making you feel guilty for stupid shit isn't love."

Hyper stood for a while in thought. Eventually, she took his other hand.

"But  _you_ still love me, right?"

"Dude, of course! I wouldn't have done that for you if I didn't."

Hyper smiled again. "I mean..maybe you are right, but I don't know..just..." She drew herself closer. "Just don't attack anybody in my honor unless I say it's okay?"

Devil Boner pulled her all the way into a hug. "Sounds like a plan." With that mostly dealt with, he looked at the room they were in. "So this was your pad as a kid?"

Hyper broke from the hug and nodded. "Yeah! I think it belongs to Mel now, but it's barely changed. I think we have a lot of the same interests, and they've got a lot of my hand me downs." She walked over to one wall and felt around, tearing one piece of the "wallpaper" off. "Oh my god, this was my poster wall. They just painted over it!" She showed him the paper, which had Harrison Ford's face on it. "This was my double sided  _Star Wars_ poster! I had Leia facing out because she was really, um, special to me. I can't believe they did that! I should have taken more of them home!" She was scowling now. They could mess with Hyper's mind and social life all they wanted, but she was pretty damn sensitive about people picking on her fandoms.

Devil Boner patted her back. "Are you mad at them too now?"

Hyper sighed. "Honestly, yeah! But I'm still not gonna confront them myself." She sat on her sister's bed, her boyfriend taking a seat next to her. She bounced a little bit to ease her nerves. "I think this was even the same bed I had when I was sixteen." She turned to Devil Boner. "You know how much I wanted a boy on my bed when I was that age?"

Devil Boner chuckled. "You got your boy on your bed now. You happy?"

"Ecstatic." She pushed him to the bed and started kissing him, knowing yes, someone  _did_ love her at last. "I love you, teddy bear."

"I love you, necksnapper."

Unfortunately, Melody rapped on the door before anything got too crazy.

"Oh, what could you _possibly_ -" Devil Boner started yelling until he saw who it was. "Oh, hey. Sorry if I like...terrorized you or anything back there."

"It's okay, I'm always kinda scared." The little tomboy smiled wider than the couple had seen them smile all afternoon. "That was actually kind of cool. I never saw anybody stand up to Mommy and Daddy like that."

"Well, I'm not scared of those bitches. I'm not scared of anything."

"Except artichokes," Hyper teased.

"Dude, not funny," Devil Boner scolded.

"Oh, sorry, pookie."

Despite their confusion, Melody walked up to Hyper with the VHS tapes she had left behind. "I thought you might want to hold onto these. We don't like a lot of them anyway. A lot of it is dated, but you're a nineties kid so you can hold onto it."

Hyper gasped as she took the saving grace of her childhood into her hands. "Thank you so much!" She gave them a hug. "You're such a good sister!" She looked back at Devil Boner to make sure. "Mel is such a good sister, right?"

"Yeah, they're a great sister," he said, tapping the brim of their hat. The kid was spooked at first, but seemed to like Devil Boner by now.

"He's cool," they told Hyper. "Are you gonna marry him?"

Flustered, Hyper replied, "Yes, obviously!" She turned to her boyfriend with begging eyes. "Whenever he's ready, I mean."

After the day they had, Devil Boner figured it would be best to save a proposal for a later date, when he could plan it better and get the firecrackers in place.

"I say for now we go home to our own family," he said, hugging Hyper closer. "Mess around with Benny and all that."

"Could I come someday?" Melody asked with bright eyes.

Devil Boner grinned at them. "Maybe someday I'll come back and take you out of this hellhole and train you to fight for yourself." 

Melody started clapping, but Hyper stepped in, saying, " _If_ we have the time and the room and our parents wouldn't kill one of us." Melody's face fell, so Hyper added, "But...it's a good idea, to be honest."

Hyper hugged her sister and, clutching her boyfriend's hand and her precious tapes, left her old, terrible stomping grounds back to the only family she needed. Her parents didn't even notice her leave.


End file.
